Numéro 2001/12

Exploring Corporate Entrepreneurship : A Corporate Strategy Perspective Véronique BOUCHARD Professeur Unité Pédagogique et de Recherche Hommes et Stratégies Equipe Management Stratégique E.M.LYON Décembre 2001

Exploring Corporate Entrepreneurship: a Corporate Strategy Perspective

The following paper is exploratory and constitutes an initial attempt to tackle the field of Corporate

Entrepreneurship from a Corporate Strategy perspective: it points at some unaddressed issues and

aims at stimulating further thinking and investigation. This paper has been presented at the 17th EGOS

conference held in Lyon on July 2001 under the title “Corporate Entrepreneurship: a Pandora’s Box ?”.

Abstract : Corporate Entrepreneurship associates the contrasting notions of individual initiative on the

one hand and corporate development on the other. From a Corporate Strategy perspective, this

association appears somewhat hazardous since it reinforces 1) the risk of strategic misalignment and

2) the risk of competitive advantage erosion. In effect, corporations cannot rely on personal initiative

without increasing the autonomy of individuals and the risk that their personal projects might diverge

significantly from key strategic alignments. Furthermore, by doing so, corporations favor the

progressive transformation of certain employees into highly valuable and marketable entrepreneurs,

thus reducing the level of embeddedness of their most valuable human resources and, consequently,

the sustainability of their competitive advantage. In order to successfully implement CE, corporations

have to face and mitigate the risks inherent to it : the last part of the paper explores the contextual and

management variables that influence corporations’ ability to manage these risks.

Key words: Corporate Entrepreneurship, Strategic Alignment, Competitive Advantage, Resource

Mobility, Rent Appropriation

Résumé: L’Intrapreneuriat associe étroitement les notions antithétiques d’initiative individuelle et de

développement organisationnel. Du point de vue du management stratégique, cette association n’est

pas sans générer de risques car elle peut accroître 1) le risque de divergence stratégique et 2) le

risque d’érosion de l’avantage concurrentiel. L’entreprise ne peut en effet faire levier sur l’initiative et

l’engagement des individus sans accroître leur autonomie et par conséquent le risque que leur projet

ne s’écarte des alignements stratégiques de l’entreprise. De plus, en encourageant l’initiative

individuelle, les entreprises favorisent la transformation progressive de certains employés en

« intrapraneurs » dont la valeur et l’employabilité à l’extérieur de l’entreprise sont très élevées. Elles

diminuent ainsi le degré d’ « enchâssement » de ressources précieuses et réduisent par conséquent la

défendabilité de leur avantage concurrentiel. La capacité des entreprises à mettre en œuvre avec

succès l’Intrapreneuriat est donc liée à leur capacité à mitiger les risques mentionnés : la dernière

partie de l’article explore l’ensemble des variables contextuelles et internes pouvant influencer celle-ci.

Mots-clés : Intrapreneuriat, Alignement stratégique, Avantage concurrentiel, Mobilité des ressources,

Appropriation de la rente .

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Introduction

Since its inception in the late seventies and up to this day, the topic of Corporate Entrepreneurship

(CE) has intrigued both scholars and practitioners. The extensive body of literature they have

produced over the years reveals, however, a great heterogeneity of purpose and perspective (Guth &

Ginsberg, 1990; Sharma & Chrisma, 1999) which stems in part from the multifaceted nature of CE but

also from the persistence of unsolved “definitional issues” (Sharma & Chrisman, 1999). The apparently

inconsistent viewpoints found in theoretical and empirical writings are representative of this state of

affair. In effect, while most theoretical models postulate a positive relation between CE and firm

performance, or between CE and some valuable organizational process such as learning or renewal

(Kuratko, Montagno & Hornsby, 1990; Covin & Slevin, 1991; Zahra, 1993; Lumpkin & Dess, 1996;

Zahra, Nielsen & Bogner, 1999), field studies propose a contrasted picture of CE, a picture in which

failure is common (von Hippel, 1977; Fast, 1978; Sykes & Block, 1989; Burgelman, 1983a; Kanter,

1985; Kanter et al., 1990, 1991; Gompers & Lerner, 2000). This discrepancy has been the trigger that

has encouraged us to try and approach CE from a different and somewhat unorthodox perspective. If

CE, as experience tends to prove, systematically raises strategic, organizational and operational

issues that eventually lead to failure or withdrawal, then we should envision CE as a cause of poor, as

much as superior, performance and propose conceptual models that take into account its negative as

well as its positive implications.

Like other scholars we are convinced that CE is “a contradiction in terms” (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990),

and we think it is therefore legitimate to question its value as an instrument of corporate development.

In view of the growing propensity of corporations to elicit entrepreneurial behaviors from their

employees and to implement various forms of CE, this calling in question seems all the more

appropriate. In fact, we believe that the fate of CE as an organizational practice — whether it opens

new horizons or becomes another business fad, or worse, a subtle instrument of domination — will

depend on our ability to tackle CE with realism, taking into account the various issues it raises and

finding whether and how they can be dealt with. Our purpose, in this paper, is to “realistically” appraise

CE from the perspective of Corporate Strategy knowing however that a comprehensive treatment

would require inputs from other management disciplines. We will demonstrate that, from a Corporate

Strategy standpoint, CE can have unexpected and undesired consequences. Specifically, we believe

that CE reinforces two risks: 1) the risk of strategic misalignment and 2) the risk of competitive

advantage erosion. The article will explore in some depth the origin as well as the liabilities tied to

these risks. We observe that many corporations rely on CE in order to reach their market and

organizational goals. We believe that their capacity to successfully implement and maintain CE over

time depends on the ability of their managers to face and mitigate CE’s strategic risks. In the last part

of this article, we will advance some general propositions concerning the contextual and management

variables that can contribute to the containment of these risks.

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The paradox of Corporate Entrepreneurship

In a recent article, Sharma and Chrisman (1999) propose the following definition: “CE is the process

whereby an individual or a group of individuals, in association with an existing organization, create a

new organization or instigate renewal or innovation within that organization”. This definition has

various merits, among which the fact that it singles out, in our view, the key tensions that confer CE its

paradoxical nature. In this definition, the “new” and the “existing” have to coexist — the “new” is in fact

nested in the “existing” (Burgelman, 1983b), the “individual” and the “organization” which are usually

located on different planes are closely associated in the pursuit of a common endeavor. To anyone

familiar with business organizations, these associations appear problematical and raise many

questions: how can innovation and individual initiative flourish in the midst of a highly structured

environment ? should corporations rely on individuals to foster innovation and renewal ? is it safe,

efficient ? how can individuals and organizations associate ? what does it imply in terms of respective

responsibility, role and retribution ? etc. Various authors have emphasized the paradoxical nature of

CE (Burgelman, 1983b; Kanter, 1985; Kanter et al. 1990; Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990), however the

issues that result from this paradoxical nature and are inherent to CE have not been systematically

addressed. Before we present our contribution to a more systematic treatment of these issues, we will

restate the terms of the CE paradox.

The close association of two antithetical realities, the reality of Corporate Management on the one

hand, and the reality of Entrepreneurship on the other, has been identified by various authors

(Stevenson & Gompers, 1985; Kanter, 1985; Kanter et al., 1990; Stevenson & Jarillo, 1991) as the

source of the CE paradox: let us briefly summarize what opposes these two realities.

Entrepreneurship vs. Corporate Management At the root of the differences between Entrepreneurship and Corporate Management, stands the deep

divide that oppose exploration to exploitation. The exploration/exploitation antagonism is a central

theme in Management and Organization sciences (March, 1991, Axelrod & Cohen, 1999). It has

interested various researchers whose writings, in spite of the great heterogeneity of the terminology

employed — Abernathy’s “productivity dilemma” (1978), Kanter’s “Mainstream vs. Newstream” (1990),

Ghemawat & Ricart i Costa’s “Dynamic vs. Static Efficiency” (1993) — all point in the same direction:

the marked differences between the two types of activity, their problematic co-existence, the necessity

of striking a balance. Entrepreneurship, which implies identifying non-addressed needs, proposing

original solutions and creating new organizations (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985; Stevenson & Jarillo,

1990; Venkataraman et al., 1992; Gartner et al., 1992; Venkataraman, 1997) is centered on

exploration while Corporate Management, which focuses on optimizing the use of existing resources,

making judicious allocation decisions and controlling their correct utilization, is centered on

exploitation: not surprisingly the two realities collide. Entrepreneurship is exposed to “the liabilities of

the new” (Venkataraman et al., 1992) and to failure1. The entrepreneurial process is complex and

uncertain (Burgelman, 1983a; Kanter, 1985; Venkataraman et al., 1992). Corporate Management, on 1 In the U.S., about 80% of all new ventures fail within the first five years (cited in Kanter, 1990).

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the contrary, because it aims at “doing better what it already does well” takes place within a familiar

context, can capitalize on past experience and apply proven recipes. It is consequently less exposed

to failure than Entrepreneurship and is in fact characterized by a marked “anti-failure bias” (Stevenson

& Gumpert, 1985, McGrath, 1999).

As various authors have emphasized (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990; Venkataraman, 1997; Floyd &

Woolridge, 1999; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999), individuals are at the heart of the entrepreneurial

process. These individuals — the Entrepreneurs — are self-determined and freer than their Corporate

Management counterparts. Corporate Managers are bound to their organization — as trustees and

employees — and to their colleagues — on whom they depend for resources and legitimacy. These

differences in terms of status have important behavioral implications. Entrepreneurs’ strategic

orientation is driven by their personal perception of opportunities (Shane & Venkataraman, 1999),

while Corporate Managers’ strategic orientation is driven by the resources they control (Stevenson &

Gumpert, 1985). Entrepreneurs, unburdened by internal politics and administrative heritage, can

modify their plans at will and adapt them to changing opportunities and conditions (Stevenson &

Gumpert, 1985). By comparison, Corporate Managers have little flexibility: their decisions have to

factor a myriad of administrative and political constraints and are biased towards large up-front

commitments (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985). In order to survive, Entrepreneurs need to “perform

miracles” i.e., to overcome various critical project hurdles with very limited resources, except for their

ingenuity and social capital (Green, Brush & Hart, 1999). Corporate Managers, on the contrary, can

use the vast pool of resources to which they have access to “arrange a negotiated environment” (Cyert

&March, 1963) and reduce the risk of failure.

Given the radical differences between Entrepreneurship and Corporate Management, we can imagine

that CE, which presupposes their coexistence and integration, is bound to generate serious issues

and conflicts. The problem is further complicated by the fact that Entrepreneurship and Corporate

Management do not stand on equal footing: in CE, in effect, the entrepreneurial process does not take

place at the margin of the corporation but within the corporation. Because it is embedded in the

corporation, CE — the “newstream” — depends on and competes with the “mainstream” for its

resources and legitimacy (Kanter, 1990). CE will be assessed — and consequently supported —

according to criteria set by Corporate Managers, criteria that usually reflect a strong bias towards

efficiency and risk avoidance. CE must take place in a rigid and partitioned environment which limits

the freedom of action and the circulation of information which are so important for its success.

Because they ultimately control Corporate Entrepreneurs and the resources they utilize, Corporate

Managers are often tempted to instrumentalize CE i.e., to use it as an efficiency maximizing tool rather

than as a development tool, however problematic this might result (Kanter, 1991). In mature

organizations, Corporate Management values and norms are dominant and those who are not part of

the “mainstream” belong to a minority: as minority members, Corporate Entrepreneurs are more likely

to receive inadequate support and recognition. Finally, even though they usually enjoy some

autonomy, Corporate Entrepreneurs ultimately remain employees, contractually bound to, and

rewarded by the corporation.

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Unsurprisingly, the implementation of CE is fraught with difficulties. Case studies mention serious

problems and high failure rates (von Hippel, 1977; Kanter, 1990, 1991; Block & MacMillan, 1993;

Gompers & Lerner, 2000; Hamel, 2000). Let us summarize some of the recurrent issues reported in

the literature.

Some issues inherent to Corporate Entrepreneurship

Conflicts The potential sources of tension between Entrepreneurship and Corporate Management are too

numerous and diversified to remain latent and most case studies provide long and detailed accounts

of the various types of conflict that their coexistence generates. The nature and intensity of these

conflicts depends on various factors but particularly on the degree of formalization of the CE process

and the organizational design chosen to support the process. Designs that maximize autonomy2 such

as New Ventures Divisions or Corporate Venture Funds have been shown to generate a great deal of

organizational conflict (Fast, 1978, Burgelman & Sayles, 1986; Block & MacMillan, 1993; Kanter,

1990; Gompers & Lerner, 2000; Chesbrough, 2000). Autonomous CE entities enter in conflict with

established operating divisions (horizontal conflict) over issues that range from disagreement over

respective territories, fight over shared resources, to feelings of envy and mistrust. Fast (1978) has

observed that the intensity of horizontal conflict was proportional to the resource requirements and

therefore to the success of the autonomous entity. Designs that maximize autonomy also generate

vertical conflicts between the CE entity and top management: these conflicts arise as a consequence

of top managers’ desire to fully control the entity and from the entity’s refusal to be managed and

assessed like a regular business division. Chesbrough (2000) observes that top management

attempts to manage venturing entities like established divisions i.e., applying the same methods and

performance criteria, usually backfired and led to poorer rather than improved performance.

What happens when CE is not contained within an autonomous structure but takes a more dispersed

form (Birkinshaw, 1997)? Organizational conflicts will be replaced by personal conflicts (Kao, 1989).

Conflicts will be managed by the corporate entrepreneurs themselves who will have to strike their own

balance between the requirements of exploration and exploitation and overcome with their own means

the obstacles created by their environment. But the main problem associated with dispersed — and

informal3 — CE is the risk of inconsequentiality.

2 i.e., being protected from the day-to-day operations and reporting requirements of the parent corporation and allowed a degree of self-sufficiency till viability has been achieved (Burgelman & Sayles, 1986). 3 Zahra (1993) defines informal CE as a type of CE that is based purely on employees’ initiatives in absence of any formal organization sponsorship.

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Inconsequentiality CE is inconsequent when it concerns too few people within the corporation and/or generates only

marginal improvements. The hostile environment in which dispersed and informal CE are supposed to

flourish tends to select out ambitious projects and less than exceptional individuals. In these forms of

CE, corporate entrepreneurs continue to perform their everyday tasks and to respond to their regular

boss: there are no guarantee that they will be given sufficient time and freedom if their project takes

off. The absence of supportive colleagues and superiors will also act as a damper on the creativity and

daringness of would be entrepreneurs. In absence of proper support and incentives, dispersed CE

programs tend to produce only marginal improvements and amount to little more than quality

improvement programs (Kanter, 1991a). Only individuals with superior qualities in terms of experience,

drive, connections and resourcefulness will be able to thrive in these conditions and bring the internal

venturing process to completion (Burgelman, 1983a, Kanter et al., 1991; Hamel, 2000).

Early withdrawal Literature provides various accounts of early withdrawal from CE. Studies on Corporate Venturing

have shown that few programs were deemed successful and pursued beyond their first years of

existence (Fast, 1978; Kanter et al., 1990; Block & MacMillan, 1993). The motives that lead to

withdrawal are varied and complex: they can be circumstantial (e.g., the arrival of a new CEO),

dictated by a shift in strategic priorities resulting from changing conditions (e.g., reduced emphasis on

retention objectives due to diminishing tensions in the labor market) but very often, they result from top

management’s inability to properly measure CE’s benefits. “Cultural” benefits such as increased

motivation, enhanced creativity or organizational learning are more difficult to measure than financial

benefits: as a consequence, financial benefits often become the primary if not the only criteria for

evaluating CE programs, inducing an undesirable bias. In effect, when assessed from a strictly

financial perspective most CE programs show mediocre results4 and if cultural benefits and spillover

effects are not taken into consideration, CE programs can easily be viewed as failures and

discontinued. On the other hand, studies indicate that in order to be financially successful, CE

programs have to enjoy complete strategic and operational autonomy, including the freedom to seize

opportunities independently of synergies with existing business (Burgelman & Sayles, 1986;

Chesbrough, 2000). From a corporate standpoint, the “raison d’être” of these highly profitable but

totally unrelated CE entities appears very questionable, and for this reason, they are usually

dismantled after a few years of existence (Kanter, 1991; Gompers & Lerner, 2000). From a Corporate

Management standpoint, CE programs are easy targets — they can be criticized on account of their

high failure rate and mediocre financial returns and if they yield high profits, they can be criticized

because of their lack of synergies with the existing business. Not surprisingly, CE programs constitute

“unstable organizational forms” (Kanter, 1990) that are easily disposed of.

4 Nearly 50 percent of new corporate ventures do not reach profitability within 6 years, in the same interval of time, only one company in seven finds that its corporate venturing activity yields ROI greater than that of its base business (cited in Block & MacMillan, 1993).

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It should now be apparent why Corporate Entrepreneurship constitutes, in theory and in practice, such

a fine challenge and why certain authors have not hesitated to call it an oxymoron. CE is not a

panacea and seems to generate as many issues as it solves. These issues are too numerous and

diverse to be examined in a single instance and from a single disciplinary lens. This is why we will now

focus on what we consider to be critical strategic issues, hoping that scholars from other disciplines

might further and complete our attempt at systematically identifying and addressing the issues

inherent to CE.

CE from the perspective of Corporate Strategy

Up to recently, the perspective of Corporate Strategy over CE has been essentially a firm level

perspective. A good part of CE theoretical articles (Miller, 1983; Jennings & Lumpkins, 1989; Covin &

Slevin, 1991; Zahra, 1993; Dess, Lumpkin & Slevin, 1997) has been dedicated to the elaboration and

refinement of models that attempt to link the firm’s overall performance to its adoption of an

entrepreneurial posture5. In this article and in coherence with Sharma and Chrisman’s (1999)

definition of CE, we adopt a process perspective and try to link the firm’s strategic capability and

position to its involvement with CE.

Like several authors (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990; Sharma & Chrisman, 1999; Floyd & Woolridge, 1999),

we believe that CE’s most original characteristic is that it relies on individuals qua individuals. The

implications of this specificity have not been fully weighted, let alone understood. We think, for

example, and we will attempt to demonstrate it, that the central role played by individuals qua

individuals can have a negative impact on the corporation’s ability to pursue and implement its

strategic goals and to preserve its competitive advantage over time. In other words, we believe that

CE reinforces 1) the risk of strategic misalignment and 2) the risk of competitive advantage erosion.

The risk of strategic misalignment It is not possible to rely on personal initiative and commitment without increasing the autonomy of

individuals and consequently the risk that their personal projects might diverge from the key strategic

alignments of the corporation. An effective CE program will give rise to a large number of initiatives,

whose degree of relatedness with the corporation’s core activities cannot be fully determined in

advance: to this extent, CE reinforces the risk of strategic misalignment.

Coherence and focus are central tenets of strategic thinking (Glyn, Barr & Dacin, 2000) and the

negative consequences of strategic misalignment have been amply described in the literature. The

first call for coherence and focus can be traced back to the seminal work of Ansoff (1965) in which he

enjoined managers to identify “the common denominator” of the corporation and “to maintain the

common thread”. Ansoff was reacting to the over-diversification of American corporations common at

5 CE is defined after Miller (1983) by Covin & Slevin (1991) as “a dimension of strategic posture represented by a firm’s risk-taking propensity, tendency to act in competitively aggressive, proactive manners and reliance on frequent and extensive product innovation.”

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the time. His call has been echoed throughout the “pruning” seventies and eighties by consulting firms

with their portfolio analysis techniques, strategic thinkers such as Hofer & Schendel (1978) with their

emphasis on “domain definition” or management gurus such as Peters & Waterman (1984) underlining

the necessity to “stick to the knitting”. As Stimpert et al. (1998) show, coherence and focus are also

fundamental dimensions of the “corporate identity” concept. In effect, the benefits of a strong identity

are attributable not only to the advantages that derive from a superior image, but also to the focus this

identity provides to decision makers — allowing them to devote their attention to key issues, to better

allocate resources and correctly align processes, methods and fixed assets — and the coherence it

helps preserve by establishing clear boundaries that allow organizational members to pursue

congruent initiatives. The recent “resource-base strategy” school continues to emphasize the

importance of coherence and focus. Managers are enjoined to concentrate on those few resources

and competencies that are unique and distinctive so as to maximize returns on internal resources and

erect formidable barriers against competitors (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Barney, 1991; Grant, 1991)

and to outsource the activities for which the firm has neither a critical need nor special capabilities

(Quinn & Hilmer, 1994).

The focus and coherence tenets have an immediate corollary: diversification should to be envisioned

with extreme caution. Various authors (Rumelt, 1982; Montgomery & Wernerfelt, 1988) have

underlined the risks inherent to diversification and enjoined managers to diversify prudently and only at

certain conditions. For Montgomery & Wernerfelt (1988), diversification is justified if it allows the firm to

“reduce excess capacity of factors that are subject to market failure” i.e., to better exploit unique

resources. The dangers of unrelated diversification have been clearly exposed by Rumelt (1982):

among them, an inefficient use of resources due to the absence of synergies between new and

existing activities and a relative erosion of the firm’s competitive advantage that cannot be transferred

to the new activity.

Diversification also taxes the brain of decision makers which find themselves testing the limits of the

mental schemas — the “dominant logic”— that allow them to make intuitive and appropriate decisions

(Prahalad & Bettis, 1986). Finally, diversification can lead to a loss of control (Hoskinsson et al., 1991)

on the part of Corporate Managers who are not “adequately informed about the internal operations

and external environment of divisions” (Ellsworth, 1983 in Hoskinsson et al., 1991) or, on the contrary,

overwhelmed by an excess of information.

CE, which implies the pursuit of a large number of related and unrelated initiatives, is the antithesis of

focus and coherence and as such raises a number of issues. CE diverts valuable resources away from

the “mainstream” or core business: technical and financial resources, of course, but above all, the time

and mental energy of highly skilled managers and technologists (Greene, Brush & Hart, 1999).

Corporate entrepreneurs, like their independent counterparts, tend to “pursue opportunities without

regard to the resources they currently control” (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990). The opportunity driven

behavior of corporate entrepreneurs encourages them to venture outside the domain of activities and

competencies of the corporation and to care little about synergy and relatedness. This behavior

increases the exposure of the corporation to the liabilities of unrelated diversification i.e., inefficient

use of existing resources, erosion of the competitive advantage and dramatically amplified risk of

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failure. CE, to the extent that it promotes divergent behavior, can also be seen as a factor of erosion of

the corporate identity.

Because CE encourages the simultaneous pursuit of a large number of small scale projects, it can

lead to the spreading thin of managerial attention and the emergence of a control risk. (Hoskinsson et

al., 1991). The natural tendency of CE projects to “hide out” or “go underground” (Kao, 1989) makes

this problem all the more preoccupying. The lack of managerial control over proliferating initiatives can

have dramatic consequences: even though the losses associated to a single failed initiative are

usually limited, the accumulation of many small losses can have a significant impact on the

corporation’s overall level of performance. Companies like Xerox or Salomon in the eighties, both

endowed with a strong entrepreneurial culture and abundant slack, have experienced the painful

consequences of uncontrolled divergence. Unchecked corporate entrepreneurs can adopt misguided

opportunistic behaviors (Burgelman, 1983b) and increase strategic risks by investing in risky assets,

striking deals with unreliable counterparts, making unrealistic commitments or behaving in ways that

can damage the corporate image (Simons, 1999).

Finally, CE raises issues because its spontaneous/emergent character (Gartner et al., 1992) is not

compatible with corporate managers’ belief in the deliberate nature of the corporate development

process. CE, in effect, is a bottom-up process that depends heavily on “the attitude of individuals

below the ranks of top management” (Stevenson & Jarillo, 1990), “who are likely, at any time, to try to

get their organization engage in activities that are outside of the scope of its current strategy”

(Burgelman, 1984). This autonomous behavior “is natural and comes about as the result of individual

strategists seeking expression of their special skills and career advancement through the pursuit of

initiatives” (Mintzberg, 1978; Burgelman, 1984). CE involves experimentation and learning by doing: it

is an open-ended process, liable to many changes and re-orientations as it unfolds. Emergent, open-

ended processes cannot be managed in the same way and with the same tools and techniques as

induced processes. However, most corporate managers do not master these methods and techniques

and as a result will either deny the profound differences between CE and more traditional

development approaches or renounce to manage CE as an integral part of the corporation. In both

cases, as we have seen, the consequences will be negative.

The decision to encourage autonomous behaviors on the part of employees can have negative

consequences on the corporation’s ability to maintain its key alignments. To this extent, CE exposes

the corporation to the liabilities of uncontrolled divergence i.e., loss of direction, poor exploitation of

unique resources, waste, high failure risk and loss of managerial control.

The risk of competitive advantage erosion We believe that the unfolding of CE can have notable consequences on the unique bundle of

resources of the corporation and, consequently, on the sustainability of its competitive advantage.

When the corporation relies on single individuals in order to foster innovation rather than on its

constituted R&D teams and their well established routines, it indirectly favors the development of

highly mobile resources at the expense of more embedded ones. In effect, the key resource of CE is

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the corporate entrepreneur himself (Greene, Brush & Hart, 1999), a highly mobile resource as we will

see.

The mobility of individuals depends on the idiosyncrasy (Dierickx & Cool, 1989) or specificity (Teece,

1986) of their skills: the more generic their skills, the more marketable and mobile should be their

holders. Corporate entrepreneurs possess firm-specific skills — their knowledge and mastery of

markets, technologies and internal processes — but also valuable generic skills which they acquire

and reinforce as they go through the various stages of their venturing process. These “venturing” skills

— knowing how to constitute and leverage social capital, how to elaborate a business plan, how to

use resources with parsimony and ingenuity, how to elicit support from corporate champions, etc. —

are highly marketable: they can interest competitors, corporations belonging to other industries,

venture capitalists and, of course, the corporate entrepreneurs themselves who might decide to

become independent. Through the venturing process, corporate entrepreneurs also develop their

social capital. Their access to a growing network of acquaintances inside and outside the corporation’s

boundaries will increase their visibility, marketability and consequently their mobility. Self-confidence,

the byproduct of a successful venture, should also increase the mobility of corporate entrepreneurs.

Finally, because they are highly marketable and because their contribution is relatively easy to identify,

successful entrepreneurs are in a very good position to negotiate with the corporation and to capture a

significant share of the rents they contribute to generate (Grant, 1991).

The high mobility of corporate entrepreneurs does not imply that they will automatically leave the

corporation: to do so they need a trigger. With the rise of independent venture capital over the last

decade, corporate entrepreneurs have great possibilities and incentives to test their talent outside the

boundaries of the corporation (Chesbrough, 2000). Corporations try to attenuate this threat by

reducing the reward gap between corporate and independent venturing. In many cases, however,

corporate entrepreneurs do not leave because of financial reasons but because they are disappointed

and frustrated. When individuals engage in risky and demanding activities, they do so on the basis of

a psychological contract with the corporation (Rousseau, 1995; Leonard-Barton, 1992). Corporate

entrepreneurs have tacit expectations concerning what will happen during the venture — in terms of

corporate support — and after the venture — in terms of corporate rewards and recognition: if these

expectations are not met, and this is not rare, they will feel betrayed and become exit candidates. In

case of failure, an occurrence that is not well tolerated in most corporations (McGrath, 1999),

corporate entrepreneurs might find themselves in an uncomfortable position and feel obliged to leave.

Their departure will limit the corporation’s ability to “fail forward” i.e., to learn from their failure and to

capitalize on this learning (Leonard-Barton, 1995).

What happens when corporate entrepreneurs leave the corporation ? The corporation will experience

a loss in both human and social capital (Dess & Shaw, 2001). The loss in human capital can be

severe, especially in a tight labor market context, but the loss in social capital could be even more

damaging. In effect, in dynamic settings where formal rules do not apply, social capital — assets

embedded in social relationships such as trust or shared understanding — is an essential

organizational resource (Burt, 1992; Nahapiet, Goshal, 1998; Leana & Van Buren, 1999, Dess &

Shaw, 2001). Corporate entrepreneurs are social capital generators par excellence: they use and

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activate extended networks of trusted relations within and outside the corporation to get resources,

build support and gain legitimacy (Zahra, Nielsen & Bogner, 1999). They broker relationships between

individuals and fill the “holes” resulting from defective communication channels (Burt, 1992). When

corporate entrepreneurs go away, critical links will be severed and whole areas of the corporation

might become isolated from each other (Burt, 1992). Valuable but unformalized processes will be

dropped and forgotten. Leana & Van Buren (1999) affirm that the loss of a few but key network

members can cause irreparable damage to the corporation’s social fabric. Corporate entrepreneurs

can also — it has been the case in the United States recently — bring along with them their most

trusted colleagues (Cappelli, 2000), greatly damaging the intellectual and social capital of the

corporation in the process. The exit of corporate entrepreneurs also increases the risks of imitation

especially if their innovative idea does not require specific complementary assets in order to be

commercialized (Teece, 1986).

CE exposes the corporation to the liabilities of individualization i.e., the negative consequences of

relying increasingly on individuals qua individuals. Individuals are highly mobile resources, and

corporate entrepreneurs particularly so. Because of their high marketability outside and the high

visibility of their contribution inside, corporate entrepreneurs are well positioned to “hold up” a

significant share of the rents they help generate. When they leave the corporation, these well

connected individuals can seriously damage the corporation’s human and social capital. The decision

to rely increasingly on individuals qua individuals can have negative consequences on the

sustainability of the corporation’s competitive advantage and should not be taken lightly.

The potential benefits of CE need to be carefully weighted against the liabilities to which it exposes the

corporation: the liabilities of uncontrolled divergence on the one hand, and the liabilities of

individualization on the other. To make things worse, the two problems seem to be connected in such

a way that attempts to limit one reinforce the other: the high degree of formalization and control

required to limit uncontrolled divergence will compel corporate entrepreneurs to go outside the

corporation in search of a more supportive environment; reciprocally, the constitution of an internal

environment that is well adapted to the requirements of corporate entrepreneurs and provides them

with sufficient autonomy increases the risk of uncontrolled divergence…

Exploring corporations’ propensity to engage into CE

If CE generates strategic risks then the propensity of a corporation to engage into it will depend on the

way its managers perceive and control these risks. In the following part of this article, we will explore

the various contextual and managerial factors that impact risk perception and control and we will

advance some general propositions in which we link these factors to risk containment and corporate

propensity to engage into CE.

General risk-taking propensity The willingness of a corporation to engage into CE, to the extent that its management is aware of the

risks inherent to it, should be positively correlated to its overall orientation towards risk. The

12

entrepreneurial posture literature (Covin & Slevin, 1991; Zahra, 1993; Dess, Lumpkin & Slevin, 1997)

has explored the external, strategic and internal factors that induce corporations to take risk. Among

the most significant ones, we can cite the dynamism and competitiveness of the environment of the

corporation, the pursuit of a growth strategy, the values and traits of the top management team, the

level of performance, the culture and structure of the corporation and its level of resource endowment.

Dynamic (Miller, Droge & Toulouse, 1988) and competitive (Khandwalla, 1987) environments shorten

the life of competitive advantages (Grant, 1991) and force corporations to engage into constant

innovation. Corporations facing such requirements routinely engage into exploration (March, 1991)

and their dominant culture will better tolerate failure, inefficiency and imperfect control: as a result,

their acceptance of uncontrolled divergence should be significantly increased. A strong emphasis on

growth also creates the conditions for a greater risk taking propensity. Scholars have established the

existence of a positive link between “invest/growth situations and managers’ entrepreneurial posture”

(Covin & Slevin, 1991). Ambitious growth objectives require managers to focus on the pursuit of

opportunities rather than on the optimization of existing resources (Eisenhardt &Sull, 2000). When the

pursuit of opportunities becomes strategic, Corporate Managers do not have a choice and have to

accept the risks inherent to Entrepreneurship (Burgelman, 1983b). Growth strategies are in

themselves risky: they increase pressures for performance, push the equipment and processes of the

corporation at their limit, lead to the hiring of inexperienced employees and create the conditions for

errors and omissions (Simons, 1999).

Scholars (Covin & Slevin, 1991; Zhara, 1993) have established that the values and traits of the top

management team were important to explain corporate risk taking propensity. Similarly, corporate

culture and structure can encourage or discourage business related risk taking (Burgelman & Sayles,

1986; Corwall and Perlman, 1990; Covin & Slevin, 1991). Cultural orientations such as authorizing the

expression of unorthodox ideas, empowering lower level employees, perceiving change positively are

correlated with the adoption of an entrepreneurial posture. On the contrary, there seems to exist a

negative correlation between the level of formalization of the organization and its propensity to take

risk (Khandwalla, 1977; Covin & Slevin, 1991).

The relation between performance and risk taking has been the object of several studies that point in

different directions. For Staw et al. (1981) poor corporate performance leads to conservatism. For

most authors, however, crisis constitutes an excellent innovation opportunity and they sustain that

“poorly performing organizations engage in more risk taking than organizations that are performing

well” (Singh, 1986; Moses, 1992). This observation is consistent with the limited rationality theory of

the firm and Simon’s concepts of satisficing levels (Cyert & March, 1963; Simon, 1976). A survey of

the literature points towards a complex relation between organizational slack and risk taking. Because

it constitutes a buffer against downside risk and makes the legitimacy of experimenting less likely to be

questioned (Thomson, 1967; Bourgeois, 1981) slack should be positively related to innovation and risk

taking. Research seems to indicate that this is true up to a point (Singh, 1986; Moses 1992) but that

beyond a certain level slack can discourage risk taking (Nohria & Gulati, 1995). Burgelman (1983b)

identifies organizational slack as a critical factor in the emergence of CE initiatives.

13

P1: The factors that increase the corporation’s general risk taking propensity (e.g., the

dynamism and competitiveness of its environment, the pursuit of a growth strategy, the

values and traits of the top management team and its culture and structure, a declining

level of performance and an optimal level of slack) increase its propensity to engage into

CE.

When CE becomes a low risk/low cost option There are circumstances in which CE, in spite of its inherent hazards, constitutes a low risk/ low cost

option. In a highly uncertain environment sticking to the focus and coherence tenets amounts to

making a single large bet on the future and becomes risky. In an uncertain environment it is preferable

to spread the risk over many small bets and the multiplicity and diversity of CE initiatives becomes a

risk reduction factor. Furthermore, when many options have to be pursued simultaneously, the cost of

pursuing one option becomes critical: CE initiatives, which require almost no up-front investment and

use up resources with parsimony are more cost-effective than regular development projects. CE

initiatives have other advantages vis à vis regular development projects: they are more flexible —

single individuals or small groups will more readily reorient their efforts than organizational entities,

and commitment is fully adjustable — investments can be increased progressively, closely reflecting

the corporation acquisition of knowledge about technology, market and competition. CE initiatives,

which begin small and get thoroughly assessed before any further step is taken, can be seen as real

options “that can be exercised or extinguished at the right moment thus entitling the corporation to

improve the pay-off of its strategic choices” (Courtney, Kirkland & Viguerie, 1997; McGrath, 1999).

When time to market is more important than quality of outcome, CE becomes a highly efficient

development tool. In effect, the autonomy and freedom of corporate entrepreneurs allow them to work

and to react much faster than regular project teams, reducing the risk of missing the window of

opportunity.

P2: In certain conditions — high uncertainty and speed requirements — CE constitutes a low

risk/low cost option that will be adopted on this account.

Controlling the strategic risks inherent to CE The propensity of corporations to engage into CE and to remain so will depend, at least partially, on

the ability of its managers to control and mitigate the risks inherent to it. Specifically, managers must

be able to maintain the divergence of CE initiatives and the mobility of corporate entrepreneurs within

acceptable limits. This involves a wide range of organizational processes and managerial interventions

that deserve to be studied in detail since they very much condition the value of CE as a corporate

development tool. In the following paragraphs, we will try to advance a few general propositions that

hopefully can stimulate further reflection and research.

Selection mechanisms. CE, which can be seen as a variety increasing device (Burgelman, 1983b),

would not be complete without the corresponding variety reducing mechanisms. Whenever CE

programs are created, formal selection mechanisms that aim at promoting certain initiatives and

eliminating others are put into place. They take the form of explicit program goals, norms and

14

procedures, standardized project evaluation criteria and methods, or formal approval instances. Good

selection mechanisms should reduce the risks inherent to CE by insuring that the various selected

initiatives fall within an acceptable scope, that they are reasonably resource consuming and that they

do not generate excessive conflict. They should protect the corporation but also the individuals,

insuring that they do not take inconsiderate risk or get trapped in dead-ends. This is apparently easier

said than done and CE case studies are replete with examples of faulty selection mechanisms. In

some cases, probably in an attempt to control the risk of uncontrolled divergence, very tight selection

mechanisms are put into place: unfortunately, as we have seen, these tight selection mechanisms

drastically reduce the frequency and the originality of individual initiatives or limit the population of

corporate entrepreneurs to a handful of “corporate heroes”. Tight selection mechanisms are not

always the result of a deliberate choice. Over time CE programs can fall prey to bureaucratization:

approval processes become increasingly complex and time-consuming, restricting the number of

approved projects and discouraging most would be entrepreneurs (Kanter, 1991b). Finally, selection

mechanisms go well beyond what managers deliberately put in place: the whole corporate

environment with its implicit norms, its rules, strategic orientations and operational constraints

constitutes in itself a powerful selection device that can significantly limit the number and scope of CE.

In order to neutralize the impact of these informal but powerful selection mechanisms, corporate

entrepreneurs are often placed in ad-hoc, autonomous structures. As we have seen, however, the

performance of these autonomous entities does not always meet the expectations of Corporate

Managers. In effect, the formal and informal selection mechanisms at work in these autonomous

entities are usually poorly aligned with the ultimate goals of the corporation. Resource endowment

also constitutes an implicit selection mechanism that in many cases is not used properly. Corporate

Managers are biased towards high up front commitment (Stevenson & Gumpert, 1985) and tend to

bestow excessive resources in the initial phases of the CE process, bending the very effective

selection mechanism that scarce resources impose on emergent projects and would be entrepreneurs

(Chesbrough, 2000). On the contrary, Corporate Managers are often reluctant to fund adequately

promising and ambitious ventures that are on the verge of becoming fully fledged businesses.

When corporate entrepreneurs remain integrated to the corporate structure, their working environment

tends to be over-selective, however, when corporate entrepreneurs are isolated from the rest of the

organization, selection mechanisms become too weak to insure strategic alignment. We believe that at

the root of this apparent dilemma stands a confusion between strategic and operational autonomy.

The autonomy required by corporate entrepreneurs is mainly an operational autonomy which concerns

the means or the “how”, while the autonomy that needs to be actively managed from a corporate

standpoint is essentially a strategic autonomy regarding the goals or the “what”. Effective selection

mechanisms should guarantee the proper strategic alignment of CE initiatives while preserving their

operational autonomy.

In order to insure the strategic alignment of CE initiatives, the corporation must be able to clarify and

communicate the domain within which exploration is legitimate. A rigid domain definition in terms of

products, markets and even competencies will unduly restrict the range of envisioned opportunities.

Instead corporate managers should provide very broad directions and ensure that what is indicated by

15

corporate managers and what is proposed by corporate entrepreneurs can dynamically interact.

Eisenhardt & Sull’s concept of “simple rules” (2001) seems particularly adequate in this context: by

establishing and communicating simple rules that broadly specify approaches (how to), boundaries,

priorities, timing and exit, the corporation provides would be entrepreneurs with both direction and

flexibility. Another way of insuring proper strategic alignment is to limit the isolation of autonomous CE

entities and to foster regular exchange between corporate entrepreneurs and their mainstream

colleagues, making sure that they benefit from each others’ inputs and criticisms (Day et al., 2001).

The level of operational autonomy required by CE initiatives very much depends on their stage of

development. In their early stages, most initiatives have very modest proportions and can be pursued

within the existing organization. Once their conceptual validity has been demonstrated, ventures will

need a great deal of operational autonomy in order to grow and might benefit from being transferred to

an ad-hoc structure. Once their business viability has been established, ventures can follow different

paths: they can return to where they come from, give birth to a new business unit or be disposed of,

depending on their level of strategic and operational relatedness (Burgelman, 1984). In order to meet

the evolving strategic alignment and operational autonomy requirements of each initiative, managers

must be able to design different environments and to timely and smoothly move projects and

individuals from one environment to the other (Day et al., 2001).

P3: In order to reduce the risk of uncontrolled divergence without making CE inconsequential,

managers must be able to design and implement finely articulated selection mechanisms

that ensure the strategic alignment of CE initiatives while preserving their operational

autonomy.

Over time, corporations will face new challenges and constraints that can modify the significance and

the goals of their CE programs. It is important that selection mechanisms faithfully reflect these shifts.

Selection mechanisms in fact should be continuously assessed and redesigned in order to take into

account emerging needs and constraints and to benefit from the learning that results from the

corporation’s growing experience with CE.

P4: In order to reduce the risk of uncontrolled divergence without making CE inconsequential,

managers must be able to design and implement adaptive and learning selection

mechanisms.

Retention mechanisms In a prior section of this article, we have seen that the decision to engage into CE was not neutral from

a competitive advantage standpoint. Corporate entrepreneurs are in a good position to get a

significant share of the rents they contribute to generate and they are highly mobile resources whose

exit can damage the corporation’s human and social capital. In order to control what we have called

the liabilities of individualization, managers have to design and implement adequate retention

mechanisms.

Many managers assume that the problem of retention is reducible to a problem of compensation and

that if valuable individuals are proposed attractive salaries and pay-based incentives they will not

leave. Unfortunately, this assumption is false on several accounts (Cappelli, 2000). First, research has

16

established that people engaged in CE for pecuniary and non pecuniary motives such as the need for

achievement and job satisfaction and that in large corporations, the non pecuniary motives dominated

(von Hippel, 1977). Second, pay based retention mechanisms are easily matched by competing

organizations — established companies or venture capital funds (Cappelli, 2000). In order to retain

valuable individuals, corporations have to offer more than attractive financial rewards. What kinds of

rewards will work ? There are no simple answers to this question, since each corporate entrepreneur

has different motivations and expectations. In order to retain corporate entrepreneurs, managers

should probably know better their motivations and expectations and propose customized rewards and

incentives (Cappelli, 2000). Valuable individuals have a lot of bargaining power but large, diversified

organizations can offer them an almost infinite number of perks above and beyond financial incentives

(e.g., transfer to a new unit, transfer a different country, training, sabbatical year, flexible schedules,

etc.). In particular, large corporations constitute rich milieus in which individuals are able to create and

maintain strong social ties. Socially integrated individuals will develop an attachment and sense of

loyalty towards their colleagues that can reduce turnover (Cappelli, 2000; Dess & Shaw, 2001).

However, as Ghoshal & Bartlett (1997) suggest, the ultimate retention mechanism could be meaning.

Individualized corporations i.e., corporations whose success relies on the commitment of highly

talented and mobile individuals, could ultimately attract, motivate and retain these individuals by

proposing them, for example, a more meaningful model of the firm6.

P5: In order to reduce the mobility induced by CE, managers must monitor the motivations

and expectations of each corporate entrepreneur and propose congruent rewards and

incentives.

In today’s tight labor market context, many corporations cannot avoid high turnover and are instead

finding ways to alleviate its negative consequences (Cappelli, 2000). They try and predict attrition and

plan recruitment needs accordingly, they attempt to make people more replaceable by encouraging

proper record keeping or they focus on retaining people just until a project is completed — an easier

task than building long-term commitment, etc. (Cappelli, 2000). Another way to mitigate the negative

consequences of turnover is to maintain good relations with ex-employees so that they continue to be

a part of the corporation’s informal and formal network, a policy that auction houses and consulting

firms have applied with great success. A few years ago, the fast growing turnover of competent and

experienced professionals was perceived as a major threat by firms belonging to these two sectors.

After a few years, however, many of them discovered that their ex-employees seldom became

competitors but on the contrary pursued complementary activities and that, in many instances,

collaborative arrangements could be established. We believe that corporations faced with the liabilities

of individualization can learn from these experiences. When they possess unique and hard to replicate

resources, corporations have little to fear from departing individuals, however talented these might be.

If corporate entrepreneurs cannot be retained, corporations should accept their departure gracefully so

that mutual trust and esteem are preserved and the conditions for future cooperation maintained.

6 Ghoshal and Bartlett (1997) propose a model of the firm as a “value creating institution” i.e., “not just an economic entity but also a social institution that allows individuals to behave more cooperatively and less selfishly than they would in an economist’s free market.”

17

P6: In order to reduce the liabilities of individualization, managers must maintain good

relations with departing corporate entrepreneurs and promote continued exchange and

cooperation.

Failure acceptance We have seen that selection and retention mechanisms had an important role in the control of the

risks inherent to CE. Before we conclude this section we would like to mention what we view as an

equally important factor: risk acceptance i.e., the extent to which the organization and its management

are able to cope with failure. We believe that failure acceptance ultimately helps the corporation

reduce the liabilities tied to both uncontrolled divergence and individualization. Failure acceptance

increases the probability that errors will not be hidden but, on the contrary, discussed and transformed

into learning (Leonard-Barton, 1995; McGrath, 1999). Failures are occasions to acquire strategic

knowledge that can be transformed into a major advantage in subsequent projects. When corporations

learn from their failures, they reduce the cost of experimenting (McGrath, 1999) and thus the liabilities

tied to uncontrolled divergence. Failure acceptance also helps corporations retain corporate

entrepreneurs since both successful and less successful corporate entrepreneurs will appreciate the

fairness and coherence of an organization that encourages them to take risk but “does not heap

financial and social sanctions upon those who explore” (McGrath, 1999).

P7: In order to reduce the risks inherent to CE, managers must be able to learn from it and to

refrain from sanctioning committed but unsuccessful corporate entrepreneurs.

Conclusion

Because CE constitutes a “contradiction in terms” it raises, independently of the context and modality

of its implementation, a number of complex and interrelated issues. Case studies show that most

corporations have a hard time managing the inherent contradictions of CE. Yet, more and more

corporations would like to elicit entrepreneurial behaviors from their employees and are thinking of CE

as a potentially effective corporate development tool. In these conditions, it becomes legitimate to try

and realistically appraise CE by determining whether and how the issues it raises can be dealt with.

From a corporate strategy standpoint, CE raises critical issues since it reinforces the risk of strategic

misalignment and the risk of competitive erosion. Because it relies on autonomous behavior, CE

exposes the corporation to the liabilities of uncontrolled divergence i.e., loss of direction, poor

exploitation of unique resources, waste, high failure risk and loss of managerial control. Because it

relies on individuals qua individuals, CE exposes the corporation to the liabilities of individualization,

i.e. the progressive erosion of its competitive advantage as a result of the increasing mobility and

decreasing appropriability of its resources.

Are these strategic risks acceptable ? Does CE remain a valuable instrument of corporate

development ? The answer to these questions is conditional. It depends on corporate managers’ risk

perception and control ability which are themselves influenced by various internal and external factors.

In certain conditions — a dynamic environment, a strong growth imperative or a foreseeable decline in

18

performance — corporate managers have to take more risk and will be more willing to engage into

entrepreneurial activities. In conditions of high uncertainty and tight time-to-market requirements, the

traditional high commitment/strong focus recipe becomes risky while CE, because of its flexibility and

the diversity it generates, becomes, by comparison, a low cost/low risk option.

Strategic risks will be more acceptable if they can be contained. Selection mechanisms in the broadest

sense play a key role in the unfolding of CE and their primary goal is to reduce the risk of uncontrolled

divergence. They should be designed to simultaneously respect strategic alignment and operational

autonomy requirements and to reflect changing priorities and learning. Sophisticated and customized

retention mechanisms will help reduce the mobility of corporate entrepreneurs and the downside of

individualization. Finally risk acceptance can contribute to reduce both the cost of uncontrolled

divergence and the mobility of corporate entrepreneurs.

19

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CAHIERS DE RECHERCHE ISSN : 0183-259X Parus en 2001 2001/01 Real Options Strategies

Rodolphe DURAND - Pierre-Yves GOMEZ – Philippe MONIN 2001/02 Equipes, Risque et Contrôle

Pascal LANGEVIN – Thierry PICQ 2001/03 Organizational Development And The Ontology Of Creative Dialectical

Evolution Roland CALORI

2001/04 Contrôle des Equipes Virtuelles : Une Revue

Pascal LANGEVIN – Thierry PICQ 2001/05 Périphérique Nord de Lyon : Analyse marketing

Robert REVAT 2001/06 La stratégie des PMI, Cadre général et modélisation de la démarche

Hugues SILVESTRE 2001/07 From normalization to improvisation in crisis management : a case study

Christophe ROUX-DUFORT – Bénédicte VIDAILLET 2001/08 Vers un management délibératif – Pour un management ouvert à la parole de

l’homme dans la société de l’information Eric FAŸ

2001/09 The Organization of Obedience Soft Coercion and Strategies of Subordination in Business Firms David COURPASSON – Françoise DANY

2001/10 L’idéologie marketing et sa critique. Des années 1960 aux années 1990 en

France Gilles MARION

2001/11 Production et publication d’informations RH : acteurs, sources, méthodes,

pertinence Fabienne AUTIER

2001/12 Exploring Corporate Entrepreneurship : a Corporate Strategy Perspective

Véronique BOUCHARD Parus en 2000 2000/01 Contrats psychologiques, justice organisationnelle et identification sociale

dans les équipes dirigeantes des alliances stratégiques internationales Philippe MONIN

2000/02 L’enseignement en ligne comme forme de E Business

Thierry VOLERY 2000/03 Espace et temps de l’objet de mode

Gilles MARION 2000/04 How do organizations come into existence? Towards an evolutionary theory of

entrepreneurship Pierre-Yves GOMEZ - Thierry VOLERY

2000/05 Online Business Development Services for Entrepreneurs: An Exploratory

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2000/06 Ownership Structure and Efficiency in the use of resources. The case of private

firms Rodolphe DURAND – Vicente VARGAS

2000/07 « J’ai rêvé d’un autre monde » : la mobilité professionnelle des cadres de

l’entreprise vers l’économie sociale François MAYAUX

2000/08 Rôles et rites de la communication luxueuse

Gilles MARION 2000/09 Essai d’opérationnalisation du concept de relation. Application aux

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2000/10 The paradox of high reliability organizations : a Weickian perspective

Christophe ROUX-DUFORT 2000/11 Issues in new career management practices : insights from France

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2000/12 Des propositions épistémologiques et méthodologiques pour repositionner les recherches en entrepreneuriat Alain FAYOLLE

2000/13 Innovation strategies and international development

Roland CALORI - Leif MELIN – Tugrul ATAMER – Peter GUSTAVSSON Parus en 1999 1999/01 Le conventionnalisme est-il un néo-structuralisme ? Eléments pour une

réflexion épistémologique Olivier MASCLEF

1999/02 Listening to practitioners, collective knowledge and theory Roland CALORI - Tugrul ATAMER - Pancho NUNES 1999/03 Eléments de recherche sur la relation des PMI avec leur environnement. Un

cadre d'étude : les systèmes productifs locaux Hugues SILVESTRE - Marie-Hélène PASTORELLO

1999/04 The strategic management of small and medium-sized manufacturing

enterprises. A proposal for a multi-criteria typology Hugues SILVESTRE - Régis GOUJET - Marie-Hélène PASTORELLO

1999/05 The elaboration of a reconnoitring system. Performance as a space for co-

defining a collective strategic representational framework Hugues SILVESTRE - Jean-Claude DE CRESCENZO

1999/06 Managing change at Novotel : Back to the future

Roland CALORI - Charles BADEN-FULLER 1999/07 Links between Investment and Financing in entrepreneurial SMEs: are growth

and equity structure the key factors? Some empirical evidence on the French case Loïc MAHÉRAULT - Rémy PALIARD

1999/08 Developing collective intelligence and organizational learning. Lessons from

the Silicon Valley Thierry PICQ

1999/09 Strategic innovators and international development

Roland CALORI - Leif MELIN - Peter GUSTAVSSON 1999/10 Does choosing a section of the stock exchange matter in the IPO of SMEs?

Loïc MAHÉRAULT - Bernard BELLETANTE 1999/11 Des “produits libres” à la consommation comme art de vie : l’évolution du

discours institutionnel de Carrefour (1976-1997) Benoît HEILBRUNN

1999/12 Firm Selection: An integrative perspective

Rodolphe DURAND 1999/13 TotalFina+Elf, comment lutter contre l’évidence ?

Gilles MARION

Parus en 1998 1998/01 Contribution à l’étude des comportements entrepreneuriaux des ingénieurs

français Alain FAYOLLE

1998/02 Le G7 du Management à Lyon : un lieu d’échanges sur les pratiques

managériales. Compte-rendu de la journée du 16 mai 1997 réalisé par Bernard LAURENT

1998/03 Fidélisation de la clientèle dans les services : l’apport de l’analyse des cartes

de fidélité François MAYAUX

Parus en 1997 1997/01 Les enjeux des responsables de la communication dans la grande entreprise

Gilles MARION 1997/02 Mesurer l’adhésion du public aux projets d’intérêt général : proposition d’une

démarche Robert REVAT - Virginie MADIGNIER

1997/03 M.C.O et modèles positifs des organisations : une esquisse critique (1)

Pierre-Yves GOMEZ 1997/04 Une clarification de l’offre d’implantation en marketing territorial : produit de

ville et offre de territoire Laurence TEXIER

1997/05 The influence of the support system on the entrepreneurial process

Isabel SERVAIS - Alain FAYOLLE 1997/06 La production supranationale en réseau : pour un nouveau concept de

l’économie internationale Thierry COULET

1997/07 L’interrogation philosophique, cœur de l’identité européenne

Pierre MANENT 1997/08 L’enseignement de l’entrepreneuriat : réflexions autour d’une expérience

Alain FAYOLLE Parus en 1996 1996/01 Le contrôle dans les théories économiques des organisations

Pascal LANGEVIN 1996/02 La gestion internationale des ressources humaines : Où en sont les pratiques

des grandes entreprises françaises ? Résultats d'une étude exploratoire Françoise DANY

1996/03 ∗∗∗∗

Unité et diversité du marketing Jean - Paul VALLA

1996/04 S'implanter au Japon pour pénétrer le reste de l'Asie : Le cas des fabricants

français de colles industrielles Christine DI DOMENICO - Sami SLIM

1996/05 Management stratégique et psychologie cognitive. Synthèse des emprunts du

management stratégique à la psychologie cognitive (Tome 2) Eric VOGLER

1996/06 ∗∗∗∗

Consumption values and brand attachment Benoît HEILBRUNN

1996/07 Régulation et gouvernement des organisations. Pour une sociologie de l’action

managériale David COURPASSON

Parus en 1995 1995/01 Une approche cognitive du système concurrentiel : Le cas de l'industrie

automobile Roland CALORI - Philippe SARNIN

1995/02 Théorie des conventions : une formalisation en statique

Pierre-Yves GOMEZ 1995/03 Le gestionnaire de comptes clés dans les entreprises de biens et services

industriels Catherine PARDO

1995/04 Produits de ville. Première approche de l'offre en marketing territorial

Laurence TEXIER - Catherine RAVIX 1995/05 Une nouvelle approche de la diversification interne dans les entreprises de

services Eric VOGLER

1995/06 Une problématique sur les stratégies d'internationalisation des entreprises de

services Thierry COULET

1995/07 Le concept de produit et l'art de faire croire : La contribution du marketing aux

"nouveaux" produits de grande consommation Gilles MARION

1995/08 La politique de dividende des entreprises moyennes cotées. Approche

descriptive du cas français Bernard BELLETANTE

1995/09 Histoire européenne et Management

Fred SEIDEL

∗ Cahier de Recherche non disponible

1995/10 Management stratégique et psychologie cognitive. Un aperçu rapide de la psychologie cognitive (Tome 1) Eric VOGLER

1995/11 Les modalités de rationalisation de la décision d'octroi de crédit

Lionel HONORE